Rising Sun, Descending Darkness: How the Philippines Fell to Japan in World War II

Yes PO1 Tony Holland. The Japanese strategically advanced across southeast Asia towards Burma and India while others pushed through the Philippines towards Papua New Guinea while others moved through the Marianas, Caroline's, Marshall and the Solomon islands.
The Japanese used aircraft carriers, battle ships, destroyers and smaller craft strategically as they moved their land based Army forces to occupy and defend the various island groups.
They consider the USA to be a Sleeping Giant and they were wise enough to build a buffer of defensive rings from off Australia to Japan.
The assault on Luzon was well executed and the USA fell back to Corregidor Island which BG Wainwright defended to the best of his ability until it fell in May 1942.
Against his wishes, Douglas MacArthur was ordered back to Washington, DC.
Medal of Honor recipient General Douglas MacArthur returned in force in 1944 to retake the Philippines from the Japanese.
As we know there were individual Japanese operating in remote areas of the Philippines until the 1970s when they were finally convinced, one at a time, that the war was over.
Image: 1941-12 Invasion of Philippines map, 8-25 December 1941; Tanks of Japanese General Masaharu Homma's 14th Army deploy in the Philippines after the Japanese invasion of Luzon; Japanese soldiers guard hundreds of American and Filipino prisoners of war resulting from the surrender of Corregidor in May 1942
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Nice bit of history. Thanks!

Both MacArthur and his British counterpart at Singapore Percival were unprepared for the onset of hostilities. In both cases their individual hubris and contempt for Japanese military prowess contributed to the twin debacles of the fall of the Philippines and Singapore. The tragedy is that thousand of soldiers and civilians lost their lives and were taken prisoner due to the failure in command of both MacArthur and Percival.